Kerry Ingram (Shireen Baratheon) defends the ending of Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones had many memorable character deaths over the course of its eight-season run, but the one that sticks in my memory the most may be the death of Shireen Baratheon, played by Kerry Ingram.

There’s no forgetting the brutal sacrifice Stannis Baratheon made back in season 5’s “The Dance of Dragons,” when he burned his young daughter at the stake with no remorse or mercy for her agonizing screams as the flames engulfed her. The Red Woman, who advised this action, shoulders a lot of the blame, as well.

In my opinion, this may be the most disturbing scene on the show. I remember the horror I felt watching it, and the fan reactions that followed. Folks were upset, and it’s hard to understand why.

Folks were also upset after Game of Thrones ended for good last year, although there it had less to do with a disturbing scene and more with the perception that the ending didn’t live up to the show’s standards. Speaking to Bang Showbiz, the now 20-year-old Kerry Ingram came to its defense. “I think the ending was good,” she said, “they took into account a lot of the first season. The show started with the Starks and it ended with the Starks.”

"Also I think that the main reason the ending was so controversial is because the show had been running for so long that people had created their own endings. People write their own fan fiction, they write their own endings and it’s wonderful to see but then people get ideas in their head and the ending will never match up to their ideas. But you can’t please everyone and I personally think it was really, really good."

Okay, I can get on board with what she said here. It was never going to be easy to conclude a show as sprawling as Game of Thrones in a way that satisfied everyone…although you figure it still could have satisfied more than it did. Still, I think many fans (including myself) were diving deep into the lore of it all and started to make connections that didn’t necessarily exist.

In any case, Ingram feels the ending served justice to what was an incredible series. We may or may not agree with her, but I think we can all agree that Game of Thrones will go down in history as one of the best shows of all time, even if the final season wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

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h/t Decider